European and Local Elections – Count Thread – Day 2 May 26, 2019

So, the referendum on divorce was decisively passed with 82.07 per cent support – the IT notes that’s the widest margin of victory since the GFA/BA. But the counts continue. No startling observations so far – not a great day for the left, not a fabulous day for the larger parties either. The Taoiseach may be regretting not going to the polls at a general election a year or two back. A good day for the GP, but in a way I wonder is what we’re seeing a partial reversion to their old position where they were the catch-all party for some, leftish but not quite left, radicalish but not quite radical etc, etc. in the 2000s. After all they did have 6 TDs during that period fairly solidly throughout. Or is this a wave as there were ‘left’ waves before and SF waves and so on. Or is economic stability – despite desperate issues around housing and other areas – sufficient that the tide has ebbed for the left? And yet FF and FG can’t seal the deal. So much of what we see in the locals seems to be almost personality driven. Candidates who are well known tending to get elected – those not don’t and this across the political spectrum.

The Examiner has the first count from Tynan’s ward. He’s eighth in a ward with six seats. But a fair few candidates who will be eliminated should transfer well to him – inds, SolPbP and…. Sinn Féin :).

(The PBP councillor in the neighbouring LEA where he grew up is still in and ahead of GP, I4C, LP and remaining SF candidate & will probably make the top 5 to keep a council seat in Kenny’s constituency.)

Possibly. As an independent you can be more flexible and fuzzy and get more votes that way. When you join a party like the WP, you get out there and advocate for that party’s socialist politics. Which might be a turnoff for some people who would have voted for you as an independent.
I’ve seen a statement from Éilis Ryan post this result in which she firmly commits to sticking with the WP project. She appears to be very happy in the WP.

Dublin West has to be a big worry for them now. They’ve been looking over their shoulder at Donnelly for a while who I think topped the poll in his ward. But now they’ve got a different Green threat to worry about. 3700+ votes is some haul in a local election.
Don’t know what the story was with Tania Doyle in Ongar going Independent who managed to hold her seat. Seem to remember there was a kerfuffle back when Tania was selected to replace an ill Annette Hughes.
Maybe the threat of a carbon tax and a new no way we won’t pay might help. 🙄
Won’t make the day of reckoning with Taaffe any easier.

@gw. but are not the alliance of ff and lab. the real cutehoors; and then creation of more cutehoors, with all different names; and the more there are, the more likely to turn labour.
and did the greens decide to pander to that, for their own fast gain.
looks that way to me.

“At 5pm in France, turnout is up significantly at around 43 per cent, compared to 35p per cent in 2014 (see tweet below). In Sweden, the country’s electoral authority has noted record high turnout at 20.3 per cent. In Slovakia, which reported the lowest turnout of any member state in 2014 at just 13 per cent, it has risen to around 20 per cent.”https://www.ft.com/content/ea2d07f2-1ae2-3ea2-921b-2f706342bf35

A good bit of that, I’m sure, will turn out to be younger voters – and that has benefited the Greens, according to the breakdown. And damaged the nationalist/fascist spectrum because their core vote is older. And male.

Yes – we need to become a Green Left party IMO – to be there when the Greens go into government with the neolibs and disappoint their new voters. To present the post-Capitalist road to saving what we can of the climate.

However in the Bremen city-state elections die Linke increased the vote by about 3 points. There the Greens will have to choose between an alliance with the neolibs or a Green-Red-Red alliance with the SPD and die Linke.

Yes, the unlovely face of Brexshit certainly helped, but I think it was far more the need to counter the authoritarian nationalist to fascist spectrum overall, and to express that people want action on the Climate Emergency.

These aspects motivated first time voters and younger people particularly. I’d be interested to see the age breakdowns Europe-wide. And gender breakdown.

The ANFS (authoritarian nationalist to fascist spectrum) looks like getting 115 seats, on current projections. I guess 25+ of these may well be Brexshit Party Ltd. employees, who may not be with us much longer.

The AfD’s vote share is significantly down from its general election numbers. If anything one would expect it to higher, given the perception of the EP election as a chance to register a protest vote. I think it’s a sign that, at least in Germany, the European Parliament is taken seriously as a political actor.

Ah yes. I remember now.
Yes, it does no-one any harm to engage in online discussion with Joe. Overheard conversation is west? Dublin during the campaign: “Who are ye votin’ for?” “I was thinking of Gilligan maybe”. “Gilligan, who’s he?”. “Y’know, yer man who Joe pulled up on the CLR.” “Ah right yeah, I have ye now.”

Just as the low turnout in UK locals gave the false impression of a libdem ‘surge’ (when in reality it was tory / lab voters staying at home), I wonder to what extend the 49% LE turnout inflates or deflates some Irish parties.

Green voters might be more motivated to vote in locals than most. Still impressive numbers for some of their candidates (Chu in particular, should be a runner for the Dail), but perhaps that Green surge will be trimmed somewhat by GE turnout?

“With indications of turnout rising for the first time in 40 years, early estimates produced by the European Parliament suggest voters returned a more fragmented pro-EU majority, with traditional centre-ground parties losing seats to Greens and Liberals. Eurosceptic and far-right parties made modest gains but remained roughly a quarter of MEPs….

If the estimates are confirmed, it would spell the end of the centre-left and centre-right majority that has held sway in the parliament since 1979, giving way to a more divided pro-EU bloc that will include up to four parties….
Rightwing Eurosceptics also looked set to make some important gains, notably in France and Italy…

Eurosceptic, anti-establishment and hard-right parties were also expected to top polls in the UK, Italy, Poland, and Hungary. Nigel Farage’s Brexit party was in contention to be the biggest single national party in the parliament, potentially beating both Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and Matteo Salvini’s rightwing League. …

The traditional centre-ground pan-EU parties lost ground to the Liberals, who are expected to rise from 67 to more than 100 seats, while the Greens increased from 50 to 71, boosted by their performance in Germany….

The Socialists looked set to top the poll in Spain, in a boost for Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister. There were also unexpectedly strong showings in Italy and the Netherlands, where the centre-left had been battered in recent years….
Turnout was estimated to be close to 50 per cent across the EU, the highest rate since 1994. It bucks a 40-year downward trend that had often been cited as evidence of the parliament’s failing to connect with its electorate. In 2014, 42.6 per cent of the electorate took part.”https://www.ft.com/content/9733a232-7fe1-11e9-b592-5fe435b57a3b

Looks like the RTE/TG4 exit poll was a bit off the mark. Especially for the Greens. Actual 5.7% in the locals as against 9% in the exit poll. MOE was 2.
Cuffe coming in at 17.5 down from 23 in the exit poll. MOE was 4.
Also Ming’s vote seems to be underestimated by the exit poll.

Rare for the exit poll to be so wrong. Any thoughts on why? Bad methodology? Would people lie about voting green even though they actually voted FF/FG as a kind of guilt thing about the environment?

Yeah, also a lot of “shy NO” voters in the referendum. The exit poll underestimated NO by over 5 per cent.

RTE have gone very quiet on it and Dobson was incredibly defensive yesterday. He kept repeating health warning, margin of error and so on. But the poll was off by well in excess of the MOE. As far as I recall, this is pretty unprecedented and worth investigating. I suspect there was some sloppy methodology more than just shy voters.

Probably should know better than to watch RTÉ’s coverage, but Brian Dobson and Pat Cox piled in on Patricia McKenna in absolute techocratic horror when she brought up the issue of the potential difference running a 3-seat or 4-seat count makes (raised in comments here as well). The extent to which they couldn’t allow that point to be made is extraordinarily telling.

Funny to hear how many tonnes of paper went into the giant ballot papers, considering how important the environment has become in this election. Are those e-voting machines still in storage?? In all seriousness, my recollection was that they were too fast and too efficient for the traditionalist political class. I think they’ll be back, but not soon.

How many environmentally unfriendly kilos of coltan, tin and gold woukd be used to make voting machines? How much carbon is emitted smelting and processing the ores to produce the usable minerals in the devices?

But look, whether we like it or not, a growing number of people are persuaded that we have just eleven years to avert irreversible climate catastrophe. When faced with the prospect of the collapse of the world ecosystem, matters like health, housing, the redistribution of wealth and, yes, even election count hobby-horsing all go on the back-burner.

As alluded to elsewhere, I think there’s scope for a radical ecologist movement to function alongside the coalitionists, but – and again, whether you buy it or not – climate change is probably going to overshadow class politics more and more in coming years.

I’m torn, I kind of hope the voting machines don’t appear. Mentioned before, the current issue Scientific American notes how open to hacking they are.

That said I agree with you entirely – there is a blindness to the issues you point to. And people are exercised by them and yes they will overshadow class politics at times. Also agree there’s a need to pressure the GP from a left/green perspective. Don’t know how that can work but it’s essential.

Rockroots, the 2030 NTHE (near term human extinction movement) is something I’ve been watching with horror for about 10 years. It’s VERY freaky to watch this godawful suicide cult turn into a mainstream ‘progressive’ movement. When fast crash failed to materialise from peak oil, a staggering number of peakers toddled off to join the latest apocalypic movement. Story too long to narrate much here.

TLDR: Child of Guy McPherson, a biologist with zero climate credentials, a man who cherry picks atrocious science to paint the picture that by Jan 1 2030 the world just goes pop. His #2 is a man called Malcolm Light, a former oil man who wants massive geo-engineering, nuclear power, etc., to “save the planet”. Hmm.

When my peak oil movie ‘There’s No Tomorrow’ launched in 2012, the Post Carbon Institute guys I was working with couldn’t get the press to touch it with a barge pole because the title was ‘too depressing’. My movie was a direct attack on growth-capitalism, so no suprise what the real reason behind the radio silence was. The fact TNT wasn’t advocating human extinction, and was a far less doomerish message than the ER people are storming to now, makes me VERY suspicious. 99% the ‘Extinction Rebellion” is a corporate bait and switch (as exposed by the website wrongkindofgreen.com

Greens are now benefiting from this mass movement, which was peripheral only a couple of years ago, now everyone’s jumping on the “extinction bandwagon”.

Pisses me off for personal reasons, but also makes me very suspicious. When I see a movement getting this much traction in corporate media, annoying teenage girls being allowed to speak at Davos, you know something’s up. What’s up is that TPTB have found a way to make money off of this, and will sell the marks greenwashed capitalism (solar panels, windmills, products to buy, etc).

And the Green parties, Ireland included, will be more than happy to piggy back this garbage. Expect the Irish Greens to do VERY well at the GE if this keeps up, FG & Lab should be pissing themselves.

There are crazies everywhere though and there’s the danger in mapping them onto very basic and entirely robust scientific consensus that there is a planetary crisis that has to be addressed. One doesn’t have to think that this entails the extinction fo the human race in the near term, I don’t, you don’t, to feel that it does need addressing.

I don’t think having some exposure to the Irish GPs that they’re using this concept of a near term human extinction at all.

As to kids getting energised, I think it very necessary to not allow subjective aspects to impact on the reality that their basic case is again robust. All too often I’m hearing on the left criticism of this echoes of the Spiked stuff and that worries me. Thunberg et al (I’m presuming that is who you think is annoying) are not looking for more than the Paris Agreement to be fulfilled which doesn’t seem either alarmist or unreasonable. in fact I’d think it no harm to have these issues raised a lot higher in public consciousness. Of course there’s a danger that there’ll be greenwashing, but if the alternative is business as usual given we know and the science tells us where that leads to then that’s a risk I’d be willing to take.

All that said the NTHE stuff is sort of like a flip side to 70s and 80s deep green ‘thinking’ which was equally alarmist and useless and anti human. I can’t help but think the impossibilism of the NTHE crew is indeed as you say unconsciously or in some case consciously directed to corporate ends.

-Mary Fitzpatrick obviously much more popular than I thought for FF, while Hannah Lemass way less.
-FG got one in, bettering 2014’s result, so I’m sure they’re delighted.
-Labour’s Cllr Aine Clancy lost out to colleague Marie Sherlock at the death by 6 votes (recount ongoing). Running three candidates was stupid.
-SF way down. Elected three Cllrs in this area last time, now only one without quota, the other way down the order. Can’t rightly explain it.
-Green election of Neasa Hourigan a bit of a shock, but a welcome one.
-Not sure Gary Gannon did any campaigning here, but he was elected easily enough,. Bodes well for GE?
-Cieren Perry (Ind) elected without too much fuss, but way down on poll-topping show in 2014. Again not sure why.

A lot of also rans down the ballot, mostly left candidates. A swing to the centre seems to have taken place.

“- Labour’s Cllr Aine Clancy lost out to colleague Marie Sherlock at the death by 6 votes (recount ongoing). Running three candidates was stupid.”
Yep, running three candidates was stupid. Unless you are Joe Costello and you want to scupper the chance of any rival for the GE nomination. My read is that Sherlock was his worry and he manoevered to scupper her chances but just failed. Shenanigans coming at their GE convention I’d say.

“-SF way down. Elected three Cllrs in this area last time, now only one without quota, the other way down the order. Can’t rightly explain it.”
No they did not! It was a completely different constituency the last time. It was Cabra Finglas. They elected three councillors, one Cabra-based, two Finglas-based. The local election before that was pretty much the current Cabra Glasnevin constituency and they elected one councillor that time also – same chap as this time and he got in easier this time than that time.

And finally NFB – great to have another voice from Cabra Glasnevin on the CLR. It’s a constituency with a multiplicity of viewpoints of course. For example, some people might see the election of a Green as a welcome development but others may not :).

For Labour I just assumed one of the three couldn’t be dissuaded from running. Declan Meenagh got nowhere in 2014 but ran again, doing a lot better this time but still not really challenging. I noticed his leaflet didn’t mention the other two Labour candidates at all, and wondered if it was something of a semi-rogue candidacy.

Yeah. Tbh I don’t know what went on internally. They each seemed to run totally separate campaigns. Vote for me, end of.
In fairness to Meenagh, in one of the later counts the three of them were on 1000+ votes with iirc about 30 or 40 votes between each one – Clancy ahead of Sherlock by 30 or 40 who was ahead of Meenagh by the same. So he can say he was as entitled as the other two and he nearly made it.

DCC Twitter says Sherlock elected. Six votes again after recount(s). Distribution of Meenagh’s votes (less than 50% in total going to his Labour running mates) says a lot about the lack of cohesion in the Labour camp.

I believe the natural family of the Greens is with Fine Gael. But that the Greens must be the perpetual better land management; and in regard to stock, to always hold sway.
btw this country should be fined for so much grass, when cattle need woodland too.

I know agree completely – ffs these are mad times. Btw just on rcp and spiked it is amazing how wedded they are to freedom of speech except that they don’t like – their antagonism to remainders or soft Brexit or even May Brexit or Thunberg is something to see.